The Chinese government has embarked on a massive industrial espionage campaign aimed to hasten China’s rise to global technological and economic dominance while at the same time weakening Western companies; Aussie intelligence says Australia is now also a target of that campaign

India is worried about China’s growing military might; Indian companies see an opportunity here, and more and more of them are looking to enter the defense market — with U.S. companies as partners; the U.S. government, too, is intensifying its defense cooperation with India

One key security upgrade which resulted from the 9/11 attacks has been the installation of impregnable cockpit doors; locked doors means that the pilots need other means to monitor area right outside the cockpit — and airBaltic chooses AD Aerospace’s gear for that

The $169 million PayPal paid for Israeli on-line security specialist Fraud Sciences is part of a larger trend in security: “Security is less a matter of keeping everyone outside the outer wall and more one of detecting them sneaking through the premises,” as one analyst put it

The Software Systems Engineering Initiative (SSEI) aims to reduce the cost and speed up production of the software; the government has identified such software as “the critical enabling technology” for modern platforms; BAE’s Military Air Solutions will lead a consortium to manage the project

Market anxiety and worries about recession notwithstanding, U.S. defense companies are doing fine — and expect to be doing fine in the coming year; an analyst says that the defense industry is “a pillar of stability compared to the turbulent markets in other industries”

Government watchdog organizations say the cost of the war in Iraq has ballooned, in part, because of the dearth of trained acquisition professionals assigned to the theater and the failure of federal agencies to establish a uniform set of procurement policy guidelines

Massachusetts-based American Superconductor signed a contract to to develop and install new electrical power-grid technology in New York City which would enable Con Edison better to handle power surges and interruptions caused by accidents, weather or terrorist attacks; after government agencies’ squabble, and congressional examination of the contract, DHS tells company to go forward

Since 2004, GE’s wind turbine business has grown 500 percent, with its wind business revenues exceeding $4 billion in 2007; half of all wind turbines sold in the United States since 2005 were manufactured by GE

The long view

Google’s decision to start an AI lab in China while ending an AI contract with the Pentagon, is disturbing. Goggle may argue that it operates in a world where “AI and its benefits have no borders,” but Peter Thiel argues that this way of thinking works only inside Google’s cosseted Northern California campus, quite distinct from the world outside. “The Silicon Valley attitude sometimes called ‘cosmopolitanism’ is probably better understood as an extreme strain of parochialism, that of fortunate enclaves isolated from the problems of other places — and incurious about them,” he writes. In the 1950s, the cliché was that “what’s good for General Motors is good for the country.” Google makes no such claim for itself; “it would be too obviously false,” Thiel writes. Instead, Google talks about what is good for the world – but “by now we should understand that the real point of talking about what’s good for the world is to evade responsibility for the good of the country.”

Figures from the Pew Research Centre, a U.S. think tank, suggest that one in five fish are caught by breaking the law and the illegal fishing industry is now worth $23.5 billion. As the U.K. prepares to leave the EU’s fishing regime, illegal trawling in British territorial waters is expected to increase. Some think technology can solve the problem of illegal activity, with new solutions in the form of satellites, drones, facial recognition and autonomous boats emerging to tackle the issue of illegal fishing head on. These technologies will need to be deployed quickly.

Every day there are more headlines about China’s rise in 5G, the next generation of wireless communications technologies, and the economic and national security risks to the United States that go along with these developing technologies. These concerns, particularly the threat of critical infrastructure disruptions, are valid—but the plight of the United States is in part self-inflicted. The U.S. government waited too long to tackle the difficult issues surrounding 5G. As a result, China has unprecedented clout on the global stage regarding the deployment and diffusion of advanced communications technologies. With decisive action today, the U.S. can ensure its status as the undisputed leader in wireless technology within 10 years. In doing so, it will lock in the ability to build secure 6G infrastructure with all the accompanying economic and national security benefits.

Huawei Technologies Co., the world’s largest telecommunications company, dominates African markets, where it has sold security tools that governments use for digital surveillance and censorship. But Huawei employees have provided other services, not disclosed publicly. Technicians from the Chinese powerhouse have, in at least two cases, personally helped African governments spy on their political opponents, including intercepting their encrypted communications and social media, and using cell data to track their whereabouts. The incident in Uganda and another in Zambia, as detailed in a Wall Street Journal investigation, show how Huawei employees have used the company’s technology and other companies’ products to support the domestic spying of those governments.

Whither nuclear power? That question has become more important as energy policies evolve to emphasize emissions-free “green” energy and an increased electrification of the U.S. economy. Some environmentalists consider nuclear power to be crucial to reducing carbon emissions; others continue to vehemently oppose nuclear power and believe that our energy must come solely from renewable sources.The public, encouraged into hysteria by dramatizations of nuclear-plant accidents such as the film The China Syndrome and HBO’s Chernobyl, is split. Meanwhile, the nuclear-power industry itself is in a parlous state for a variety of tangled reasons.

Quantum technology — an emerging field that could transform information processing and confer big economic and national-security advantages to countries that dominate it. To the dismay of some scientists and officials in the United States, China’s formidable investment is helping it catch up with Western research in the field and, in a few areas, pull ahead. Beijing is pouring billions into research and development and is offering Chinese scientists big perks to return home from Western labs. Last year, China had nearly twice as many patent filings as the United States for quantum technology overall, a category that includes communications and cryptology devices. China’s drive has sparked calls for more R&D funding in the United States.